The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [261]
Now the good Nessim rose and addressed them with the cool efficiency of someone taking a routine board meeting. He spoke quietly and as far as I could gather contented himself with giving them details about recent events, the election of certain people to various committees, the arrangements for trust funds and so on. He might have been addressing shareholders. They listened
gravely. A few quiet questions were asked which he answered conc isely. Then he said: ‘But this is not all, these details. You will wish to hear something about our nation and our faith, some-thing that even our priests cannot tell you. My brother Narouz, who is known to you, will speak a little now.’
What on earth could the baboon Narouz have to tell them, I wondered? It was most interesting. And now, from the outer darkness of the cell next door came Narouz, dressed in a white robe and looking pale as ashes. His hair had been smeared down on his forehead in an oiled quiff, like a collier on his day off. No, he looked like a terrified curate in a badly-ironed surplice; huge hands joined on his chest with the knuckles squeezed white. He took his place at a sort of wooden lectern with a candle burning on it, and stared with obvious wild terror at his audience, squeezing the muscles out all over his arms and shoulders. I thought he was going to fall down. He opened his clenched jaws but nothing came. He appeared to be paralysed.
There came a stir and a whisper, and I saw Nessim looking somewhat anxiously at him, as if he might need help. But Narouz stood stiff as a javelin, staring right through us as if at some terrifying scene taking place behind the white walls at our backs. The suspense was making us all uncomfortable. Then he made a queer motion with his mouth, as if his tongue were swollen, or as if he was surreptitiously swallowing a soft palate, and a hoarse cry escaped him. ‘ Meded! Meded! ’ It was the invocation for divine strength you sometimes hear desert preachers utter before they fall into a trance — the dervishes. His face worked. And then came a change — all of a sudden it was as if an electric current had begun to pour into his body, into his muscles, his loins. He relaxed his grip on himself and slowly, pantingly began to speak, roiling those amazing eyes as if the power of speech itself was half-involuntary and causing him physical pain to support.
… It was a terrifying performance, and for a moment or two I could not understand anything, he was articulating so badly. Then all of a sudden he broke through the veil and his voice gathered power, vibrating in the candle-light like a musical instrument.
‘Our Egypt, our beloved country’ drawing out the words like toffee, almost crooning them. It was clear that he had nothing
prepared to say — it was not a speech, it was an invocation uttered extempore such as one has sometimes heard — the brilliant spontaneous flight of drunkards, ballad singers, or those profes-sional mourners who follow burial processions with their shrieks of death-divining poe try. The power and the tension flooded out of him into the room; all of us were electrified, even myself whose Arabic was so bad! The tone, the range and the bottled ferocity and tenderness his words conveyed hit us, sent us sprawling, like music. It didn’t seem to matter whether we understood them or nor. It does not even now. Indeed, it would have been impossible to paraphrase the matter. ‘The Nile … the green river flow ing in our hearts hears its children. They will return to her. Descendants of the Pharaohs, children of Ra, offspring of St Mark. They will find the birthplace of light.’ And so on. At times the speaker closed his eyes, letting the torrent of words pour on unhindered. Once he set his head back, smiling like a dog, still with eyes closed, until the light shone upon his back teeth. That voice! It went on autono-mously, rising to a roar, sinking to a whisper, trembling and crooning and wailing. Suddenly snapping out words like chainshot, or rolling them softly about like honey. We were absolutely captured